[NCC] K8MR/3 Pa QSO Party

[Jimk8mr@aol.com]

                    Pennsylvania QSO Party

Call: K8MR/3
Operator(s): K8MR, W8DRZ
Station: K8MR/3

Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 23 Counties
Operating Time (hrs): 13

Summary:
Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:            
   80:  130      9
   40:  365     72
   20:  168     17
   15:   31     10
   10:    1      0
    6:            
    2:            
--------------------
Total:  695    108  Mults = 104  Total Score = 137,912.0

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

The mults include 53 sections, 50 counties, 1 DX. The score includes 13,500
points for visiting 23 counties.

The K8MR/W8DRZ Road Warriors finished out our 2002 season with a one day
(Saturday) visit to Pennsylvania. We considered doing both days, but decided 
it
was just too much to operate all day, find a place to stay at who knows where 

in
the middle of the night, and then get up to safely do it again the next day. 
In
our case this is made even tougher by the fact that 'DRZ normally wakes up at
3:30 am to be at work at 5 am, so his body has extra adaptation do deal with 
in
these late hours.

I was a bit disappointed in the tourist aspect of the trip. With the warm 
fall
so far, the leaves were just beginning to change color, so had not reached 
their
peak fall colors. And we never saw a bit of sun, and had a lot of drizzle and
some fog at higher elevations, though no heavy rain.

Radio conditions seemed pretty good, although from listening around at home 
on
Sunday, the second day seemed better, with shorter skip on the high bands.

I have now figured out that PA involves different mobiling strategy than OH 
and
MI.  Since mults count only one time, there is little incentive for PA big 
guns
to follow and work mobiles on CW, as they will probably get an in-state clean
sweep from the casual ops calling in on SSB. There was only one PA station,
KA3S, who seemed to be working us from just about every county.  It also 
becomes
more important to work lots of PA guys on 40 SSB to get the county 
multipliers.
I tried to do this, but when S&Ping we would get beat in any pileup by any 
fixed
station who was also calling. I suspect we would have had better luck at this
second day when pileups were smaller.

Pennsylvania sure tries to keep its county lines secret.  The county signs 
are
on the same small signs as for township lines, and in several cases we found 
those
signs posted on the left hand side of the road!  In several places road
construction had the right edge blocked off. I don't think we missed any 
lines
by great distances, though many times we "changed" counties by our best guess 

of
where a curve in the road coincided with a curve on the map.

Breakdown by county:

  CW    SSB
MER    18     4
VEN    20     4
BUT    22     0
ARM  12     4
CLA    35     7
JEF    23     11
FOR    38     17
WAR    12     3
MCK    33     2
ELK    42     22
CLE    45     8
CEN    42  4
BLA    35     0
HUN    48     7
MIF    20     7
JUN    33     7
PER    31     2
FRA    27     0
FUL    29     0
BED    44     0
SOM    27     9
WES    36     0
ALL    23     0


See you again when we take to the road in the 2003 Michigan QSO Party next
April!

73  -  Jim  K8MR






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